


the start of something brilliant

by Red (S_Hylor)



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: Age Difference, Broken Bones, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Slash, Sick Steve Rogers, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Hylor/pseuds/Red
Summary: After so many years of adventuring, and then assisting in the war effort, Tony Stark didn’t think there was much left that he hadn’t seen already. That is, until on a reconnaissance mission with James Rhodes, he comes across an injured American soldier, left behind on a battlefield.





	the start of something brilliant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionforlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionforlife/gifts).



> Took this as a pinch hit for SLS, in part because looking at the prompts I had a strong suspicion who this assignment was for and definitely wanted to make sure they got a lovely gift. And also because I cannot resist Noir!Tony and skinny!Steve as a combo in fics. 
> 
> Hopefully I filled the prompt well enough. 
> 
> Thankyou to SirSapling and Mizzy for the brainstorming help, and quandongcrumble for the quick beta work.

After so many years of adventuring, and then assisting in the war effort, Tony didn’t think there was much left that he hadn’t seen already. Going up against both Giulietta and Zemo over the past few years has gotten him more than a little familiar with the sight of death and injuries. The war hasn’t helped in that regard either. 

He and Rhodey are trying to make their way behind enemy lines to investigate rumours of Hydra weapons factories in Rotruvia when they come across the decaying remains of a firefight. The first signs are bullet holes in the tree trunks, bark and wood splintered off with the impact. The cawing of crows and ravens is an indication of casualties, even before the smell of rot hits them. 

The map they have indicates that there is a road above them, higher up the incline, the mountain pass that they are heading for, that will take them into Rotruvia. It was a little traversed road, but Fury had suggested that it might have recently been used as a retreat route for the 107th, who had been in the area for a few weeks. Until it became a Hydra hotspot and they had to withdraw, with a heavy list of casualties. Tony suspects that they just stumbled upon the reason why that list had been so extensive. 

There’s damage higher up the slope, trees left as splintered stumps. Rhodey glances at him, raising an eyebrow. “Think that’s the new weapons Hydra is apparently working on?”

“Well Fury didn’t mention anything about the 107th having heavy artillery,” Tony replies, readjusting the pack he’s carrying. To their right some crows squabble over something, then wheel into the air in a flurry of angry wings. Tilting his head in that direction, Tony takes a step closer. Even from over ten feet away, Tony hears the mumble of words that comes from someone very much alive. 

Rhodey nods in understanding and unslings the rifle from his shoulder. Tony unclips the holster on his hip, extracting the pistol there. They approach carefully, Rhodey circling to higher ground, Tony cutting straight across the slope of the incline. He can still hear a muttering of words, the accent is distinctly American, and the words, though slurred, seem to be English. 

Rounding the edge of a rock jutting out of the hillside, and the fallen tree that rested on top of it, Tony sees the person responsible for the noise. Rather, he first sees the body of a dead Hydra soldier, the slick black uniform giving him away even before the metal insignia of the skull-headed octopus did. It throws him for a moment, because dead men don’t talk, but then he sees the America soldier, covered in mud and blood, trapped beneath the body. One hand clings to his rifle like a lifeline, the other arm twisted at an impossible angle. Under the dirt, his skin has the sickening pallor of someone running a fever, eyelids twitching but not opening and his lips moving ever so slightly as he mumbles. 

 

///

 

Sometimes the pain isn’t so bad. 

There are moments when he isn’t sure where he is, or why his arm feels weird, moments where he’s drifting in and out of consciousness and he is almost sure he can hear his ma singing too him like she used to when he was a child. 

Then those moments dissolve to the stench of the corpse pinning his legs, and the sound of crows fighting over their carrion dinner. Clearer moments when he is all too aware of the way his arm is twisted at an odd angle and the cold sweats and shakes his body is going through. 

He clings to his rifle with his good hand, desperate for some form of protection, though he’s given up all hope of being found. They think he is dead. They must. He doesn’t think Buck would leave him behind unless he was sure he was dead. 

In a more lucid moment he glares at the corpse of the soldier on top of him. The insignia on his strange uniform isn’t one that he recognises. Not that he’d had a chance to ask the fella who he was fighting for, before the soldier had collided with him, bayonet getting caught up against Steve’s rifle, blade digging into his chest. He’d heard the gunshot, Bucky yelling his name, but the weight of the dead enemy soldier had tipped him off balance and they’d both rolled down the incline they’d been fighting on. 

He’s not sure how far they’d fallen, only that when he’d woken up again, his ears were ringing and his arm was burning with a pain that he knew all too well meant that it was broken. And the forest all around him was scarily silent. Silence that came after a battle, when there’s nothing left in the area to make any noise. His brain was foggy then, still is, but even through that he knew in his gut that the 107th had left without him. They’d been retreating anyway, it made sense that they kept going. 

He slips in and out of consciousness, some moments all he can feel in pain, all he can smell is the putrid rot of soldier on top of him. He can’t get leverage enough to push him off, one arm tangled in the strap of his rifle, which is caught on something, the other too broken to be any good. The weight is too high up on his legs that he can’t use them. Other moments he thinks he’s safe at home in his bed, can hear his ma, or Bucky banging about in the kitchen. Those moments are the best, when he has a few minutes to snuggle back down under his blankets and can flick through the latest copy of Marvels. He and Buck buy them religiously, even though they should save the money for something else. 

“Adventures are priceless,” Bucky says every time they flick open the cover. 

Steve knows they should save the money, he knows it, but the escapism Tony Stark’s adventures offer him are worth every penny. 

When he surfaces in pain again, dehydration adding to the burn of his fever, Steve tries to recount some of the tales, whispers them with cracked lips and figures any distraction is good when he’s dying. 

 

///

 

“Shit,” Tony mumbles under his breath, looking at the soldier. “Rhodey, get down here, we’ve got a live one.” 

There’s a scuffle of rock, sticks and leaf litter as Rhodey makes his way around the rock from the top. Together they haul the Hydra soldier out of the way, freeing the trapped American soldier. Rhodey sets about untangling his good arm from his rifle, setting that safely aside, while Tony places a hand on his forehead. His skin is concerningly warm to the touch; his eyelids flutter again, and he mumbles a few more indistinct words. 

“Other than the arm, do you see any more injuries?” Rhodey asks, shrugging off his pack and extracting his first aid kit. 

Surveying the soldier again, Tony sees that the front of his uniform has been slashed, but when he inspects the skin beneath, it is only grazed, more an angry red than actually cut. There’s blood soaking into the front of his trousers, where the Hydra soldier had been, but it is old and dry. 

“I don’t think so, just the fever,” Tony replies, reaching for the chain he can see peeking out of the soldier’s collar, tugging his dog tags free from inside his uniform. “Okay, Mister Steven G. Rogers, let’s see if we can’t get you patched up.” 

 

Rogers doesn’t regain full consciousness, though he swallows the water that Tony offers him, and doesn’t choke. It’s perhaps a good thing, Tony thinks, as he helps Rhodey manipulate the bones in Rogers’ arm back into place, before they splint it. The sounds he makes while he’s unconscious are bad enough, Tony thinks, grinding up several aspirin tablets and mixing them in with a little water. He trickle feeds it into Rogers’ mouth, remembering Jarvis doing much the same to him during his past bouts of fever. Thinking of Jarvis, he wishes the grumpy old bastard was nearby. While the airship wasn’t exactly subtle, it would have been handy to get Rogers back to a medical facility. 

The sun creeps lower in the sky as they tend to Rogers; after a while, Tony barely notices the stench of death in the air, though several times he catches himself staring down at the Hydra soldier staring back at them with tinted goggles and bloated skin. 

“We can’t stay here,” Rhodey says after an hour has ticked past. 

They aren’t on any particular time frame, Jarvis isn’t expecting them at the rendezvous point until five days time. They’d allowed two days to trek in, one to investigate the possible weapons factory, and another two days to trek out again. The orichalcum shard powering Tony’s heart pump means he now has infinite time for missions, no longer constrained by time. 

“Guess that means we’d better move out,” Tony replies, taking another look at Rogers. He lifts the wet cloth off his forehead, checks his temperature again; it is possible that his skin feels a little cooler than before. He catches himself looking a little too long. Once he’d cleaned the blood, mud and dirt off of Rogers’ face he’d been struck by how young he looked. Even with the uniform to pad him out, there was no hiding the soldier’s slight frame. Either the United States Armed Forces were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they’d let Rogers sign up, or there was something about Rogers that first impressions didn’t give away. 

With Rhodey carrying both their packs, as well as Rogers’ rifle and the Hydra soldier’s weapon, he starts leading the way towards the pass again. Tony follows, Rogers draped over his back; even dead weight, he’s as light as Tony suspected he might be. 

 

///

 

He dreams that Tony Stark finds him. 

Somewhere between the pain and the whispered recollections of Marvels adventures, Steve thinks that maybe his brain has snapped. He dreams that Tony Stark himself invites him to go along on an adventure with him. It isn’t the first time he’s had such a dream. He’s even had them while awake before. Buck would tease him about mooning over the comics, tease him about preferring to look at illustrations of dames rather than the real thing. He never corrected Buck that is was Tony Stark he was looking at, though sometimes he suspects that he knew anyway. Just didn’t talk about those things, even when it was safe. 

He dreams of Tony Stark finding him, of taking him along on an adventure despite the way he looks. They trek through the forest together, heading towards a temple that is rumoured to contain immeasurable amounts of treasure. So valuable that even one piece of it would leave Steve set for life. He could buy his ma nice things, take Buck to Coney Island again, and maybe this time he won’t throw up riding the Cyclone. After all, he’s a brave adventurer now. 

Tony Stark smiles at him, over his shoulder, tells him that he’s doing a good job, that he’s brave and strong, and for a while the pain in his arm isn’t quite so bad, though he doesn’t remember what he did to it to hurt it in the first place. 

Then they aren’t in the jungle any longer. He’s not sure where they are, but there isn’t any breeze anymore, so he thinks they must be inside. It’s not the grand bedroom that he suspects Tony Stark would have in his mansion, but it hardly matters where they are, because Tony’s stripping him out of his clothes, touching him carefully, lovingly, telling him that he’s beautiful. It makes him hot, makes his skin burn and he wants to protest that dames are beautiful, that he isn’t anything special at all. 

He’s just a kid from Brooklyn. 

He’s had these dreams before, the kind that leave him aching with want when he wakes up, that leave him frustrated and angry at himself for dreaming up things that he won’t ever have. The type that used to leave him with pyjamas damp and uncomfortable, when he didn’t wake up in time. The tone of this dream shifts though; it doesn’t progress past his clothes being removed. After that he is wrapped in a blanket and is just held, safe and secure in Tony Stark's arms. 

It’s a nicer dream than it has any right to be. 

He can hear a heartbeat, the whir and hum of something mechanical. Feels something cold pressed against his forehead, and something damp against his lips. He wonders if maybe it isn’t a dream, but he knows that there is no way Tony Stark found him in real life. It’s just his mind playing tricks on him. He’s dying in a forest in the Balkans, left behind by his squadron, already presumed dead. Alone except for the rotting corpse of a soldier dressed in a strange black uniform. 

It won’t be long now. 

There’s a moment when his head feels clearer, the kind of clarity that comes with pain. He always thought dying would be a relief from pain, not an all out assault of it. His head hurts, his body feels bruised and battered, like waking up the day after getting in a fight. The pain in his arm is a deep, unrelenting ache that makes him grit his teeth and wish for oblivion. The kind of pain that makes him think it would hurt less if he just cut his arm off. 

It’s that pain, the unrelenting nature of it, that tells him he’s still alive. 

Except when he opens his eyes he knows he can’t possibly be; because sitting next to him, beside a small fire, are Tony Stark and James Rhodes. 

 

///

 

Rogers properly regains consciousness somewhere in the early hours of the morning. He’d fluttered in and out during the night, mumbling to himself on and off.  It had taken Tony a while to notice that the kid was mumbling stories from Marvels, and after that, Rhodey had just grinned at him knowingly. They’d stripped off the outer layers of his uniform, jacket and trousers both soaked with someone else's blood, before wrapping him in a blanket and settling him as comfortably as was possible in the little rocky cave they had found in the pass.

It’s the early hours of the morning, Tony is on his second watch, when he glances over at Rogers to check on him to find him staring back at with clear eyes. 

“Hey, look who’s awake,” he says quietly, so as not to wake up Rhodey, moving away from his post by the fire to offer Rogers some water. “How are you feeling?” 

Rogers blinks at him, shakes his head and blinks again. “Like I’m surely hallucinating.” 

Tony can’t help but grin, helping Rogers sip some water, reaching with his other hand to check his temperature again. Rogers’ skin has a clammy, post fever, feel to it, but the temperature is a lot cooler than previously. “I assure you that Rhodey and I are both real. We found you on the hillside, below the pass road. Looks like there was quite the fight there.” 

Rogers blinks slowly again, then tries to push himself upright, wincing as he tries to use both arms. 

“You broke your arm,” Tony informs him, catching his shoulder to steady him, helping him sit up. “Rhodey set it again, and splinted it, but I’m sure it will still hurt for quite a while.” 

“Thank you,” Rogers replies, leaning heavily against Tony’s hand, setting his injured arm on his lap and inspecting it. “Was there anyone else there? The rest of my unit?”

Tony shakes his head. “There was no one else alive, they’d already moved out. The tracks led west along the road. The closest allied base is just over the French border. We assumed that was where they were headed. It’s quite a distance though.” 

“Are you heading that way?” Rogers asks, the hope in his voice evident, even as he tries to keep it off his face. 

Shaking his head, Tony feels his heart ache at the look of defeat that crosses Rogers’ face before he schools it back. “We’ve got our own mission. But we have a rendezvous extraction in a few days and will be heading west then.” 

Rogers’ shoulders slump, then his jaw stiffens with a stubborn kind of resolve. He looks like a man planning to trek through occupied Italy in order to get to France, alone, with a broken arm and a rifle he can’t fire one handed. 

It’s that stubborn resolution, and pure determination, that have Tony offering an alternative. He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Rogers would attempt to get back to his unit alone. He also doesn’t doubt for a moment that if he lets Rogers attempt that, it’ll likely be the last time Rogers is seen. “You can meet our extraction with us, in four days time.” 

Rogers looks at him with wide eyes. “You mean come on your mission with you?” 

It hadn’t been what Tony was going to suggest. He’d been thinking they could leave Rogers holed up in the cave with some food and water and all their non essential gear, and they would meet back up with him on the way out. He doesn’t say that though, he half expects he’d get a punch in the teeth if he did. “Yeah, come with us, we could use a third set of eyes. It’ll be your very own Marvels adventure.” 

Rogers cheeks flush a delightful pink, though he does give Tony a relieved kind of crooked smile. 

 

///

 

Pain sparks up Steve’s arm as he hits the ground wrong, he grits his teeth against it, covering his head with his good arm as the tree next to him explodes in a shower to splintered wood and blue fire. 

A quick reconnaissance mission, Tony had assured him, sneak into the facility, take some photos and sneak out again, report back to a man he kept calling Fury. To be honest, Steve wasn’t sure if that was a codename or an assessment of his character of Tony’s part. He hadn’t had a chance to ask before Tony and Rhodey had swapped worryingly dangerous looks and suddenly there were explosives being set around the facility. Rhodey had disappeared into the shadows, setting off to evacuate the workers, while Steve had stuck with Tony, setting explosives. 

The whole experience, the days spent in the explorers’ company, getting to know the men behind the stories, actually going on a mission with them, all felt surreal. There were still moments when Steve expected he’d open his eyes and find himself still pinned under a rotting body, alone in the forest. 

The air was full of smoke, the scent of burning chemicals and gunpowder, instead of rot and flies. He hears the whine of a Hydra weapon winding up again, the weapons being built in the facility they’d just blown up. Tony had told him what powered them, some element mined in the country whose border they’d crossed the night before. He knows that he’s a sitting duck, knows that no matter how quick he is, he won’t be able to get up and run in time. Trying to get his good arm under him, to push himself up, Steve feels the sizzle of energy in the air above him, the ground around him washes blue for a split second, and further away he hears a cry and an explosion. 

Something grabs at his jacket, rolling him over, and he finds Tony staring down at him, eyes wide with a mixture of exhilaration and concern. “You okay, kid?” 

Steve nods, breathless with the pain, but relieved to still be alive. Tony grins at him, all dirt smeared teeth and excitement flashing in his eyes; he can’t help but smile back, though it feels more like a grimace with how hard he is gritting his teeth. 

“Good stuff.” Tony breathes, helping him to his feet; gripping the wrist of Steve’s good arm and hauling him up off of the ground, as though he weighs nothing, even in his uniform. The way Tony’s hand seems to linger a moment too long only assists Steve’s traitorous brain conjuring up thoughts of just how easily it would be for Tony to manhandle him. 

It really isn’t the time or the place to start fantasies like that, but that doesn’t stop him feel heat rush to his cheeks, and his stomach dip dramatically. He hopes he can play it off as exhaustion. Tony gives him another look of concern, opening his mouth like he’s about to ask, then another bolt of blue energy hits the ground only a few feet away. 

“I think that’s our cue to leave.” Tony laughs, looking like he’s enjoying himself far too much for a life and death experience. He fires back with the Hydra weapon he’d pilfered off the body he’d dragged off Steve only days before, before jerking his head towards the thicker copse of trees to their right. 

They dash across the few metres of open ground, bodies tilted low; the air around them blessedly quiet. Steve can feel his lungs starting to burn, throat getting tighter as they hit the tree line. The shadows envelope them like a security blanket. There’s movement a few metres in front of them, and Steve’s finger twitches to the trigger of the pistol he’d borrowed from Tony, unable to fire his rifle with a broken arm, but it’s only Rhodey. 

“Was starting to think you two would never show,” Rhodey hisses, relief clear on his face as they join him. “Thought I’d have to leave without you.” 

Tony flashes him a grin. “And put yourself out of a job? I doubt it.” 

 

///

 

Tony can hear the kid starting to wheeze behind him as they pick their way along a narrow mountain path. It’s little more than a goat track, but with the attention they’d earned themselves blowing up the weapons factory, the mountain pass road was out of the question. He slows his steps marginally, hears Steve and Rhodey both adjust their pace to match. Despite the broken arm, the kid had kept up surprisingly well, adapted to the changing circumstances, and almost seemed to thrive off action as much as Tony and Rhodey both did. 

He thinks maybe he should offer the kid a job with Marvels once this is all over. Though he can almost hear Jarvis grumbling about picking up more strays, and Pepper questioning him exactly what Steve’s role would be, and he knows he can’t very well answer with “something pretty to look at” even though that is half the reason. The hours they had spent in each others company, Steve’s wide eyed wonder and disbelief that what was happening was actually real was refreshing in a way that meeting Marvels fans usually wasn’t. Tony isn’t sure if he’s just biased because he likes the way the kid’s face lights up when he smiles, or the fierce defiance in his gaze when he refused to be left behind when Tony and Rhodey had gone to investigate the weapons factory. Or maybe it was the way Steve had looked, as he’d sighted down the barrel of the pistol and shot the Hydra agent Tony hadn’t seen sneaking up on him. There was something exceptionally attractive about the level of competence and resolve Steve showed, about the fire that burned within him, so Tony didn’t think his desire to keep Steve around was entirely superficial. 

Glancing over his shoulder, Tony makes eye contact with Steve, shooting him a questioning look of concern. There’s a worrying click and rattle to each breath Steve takes, but he isn’t surprised when Steve just clenches his jaw and shakes his head. Yes, Tony thinks, the kid is as stubborn and steadfast as himself, exactly the sort of person he wants by his side on an adventure, or in a battle. That he also thinks sometimes about how it would be to have Steve beside him in bed is of little consequence. 

They keep walking, climbing higher along the goat track until they crest the top of the mountain range. From that vantage point, Tony can’t pick out any sign of pursuit, but just to be safe they continue down until the trees become thicker again. Once they are nestled safely beneath the thick canopy, with less chance of being seen from the air, should any planes fly over, Tony calls a halt to their retreat. He watches Steve carefully as he settles against the base of a tree, head tipped between his knees, shoulders heaving with every breath he takes. Not for the first time Tony wonders how the kid managed to pass the army medical checks. He might not know how it felt to be stamped 4F, but he certainly knew how it felt to have a body that was weaker than his spirit.

Squatting down beside Steve, Tony settles a hand in the middle of his back, rubbing soothing lines against his spine, feeling like his motives aren’t entirely altruistic. 

Steve lifts his head enough to look at him, cheeks flushed, he offers a crooked smile. “Is every adventure with you going to be like this?” 

“If you stick around, you might find out,” Tony replies with a wink, immediately worrying that maybe he’d pushed things a little too far. 

Steve’s cheeks flush darker, but his smile turns shy and hopeful, like he isn’t quite sure if he’s reading the situation right, but thinks he might be. “I’d like that.” 

Tony smiles back, letting it go soft and encouraging about the edges, daring to let his hand drift lower on Steve’s back and revelling in the way the kid’s eyes go a little wide and he ducks his head, biting his lip. Tony can’t help but chuckle; it feels like the start of something brilliant. 


End file.
